The unofficial, unauthorized view of Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. The Ancestry Insider reports on, defends, and constructively criticizes these two websites and associated topics. The author attempts to fairly and evenly support both.

Monday, December 5, 2016

Each December I try to take the month off. Ancestry.com and FamilySearch respond by doing lots of interesting things. Still, I’ll try to write as little as possible. Here are the topics I would have liked to write about this week.

Ancestry is offering free access to WWII records on Fold3 in December to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor this Wednesday. “Go to fold3.com/pearlharbor to explore. Then build a memorial page for your ancestor for free, so that their memory may never be forgotten.”

Watch online the celebration of the completion of the Freedmen’s Bureau project. It will be held at the National Museum of African American History and Culture on Tuesday, December 6, at 9:00 a.m. eastern standard time. The broadcast will be streamed live at DiscoverFreedmen.org.

FamilySearch is celebrating today the 10th anniversary of Internet-based, volunteer-driven indexing. FamilySearch (and the Family History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) had previously used CD-ROM, paper, and microfilm based images in its (more properly named) extraction program. As a thank you of sorts, FamilySearch has provided “I HEART families” images that you can use as computer or phone wallpaper or Facebook profile images. See “Celebrating 10 Years of Indexing” on the FamilySearch blog.

Ancestry ProGenealogists is sponsoring scholarships to the major U.S. genealogical institutes. According to their website, “the AncestryProGenealogists Scholarship Program will provide four scholarships that will cover tuition, round-trip standard economy airfare (Ancestry may substitute appropriate ground transportation for awardees who live within 300 miles of the applicable institute), and hotel expenses for one individual each to attend one of the four institutes”

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

I usually wait until later in the month to give my holiday greetings and wax a little religious. This year, I’m sending my well wishes out early so that you can participate in an invitation to serve others in 25 ways for 25 days in December. The invitation is open to everyone of any religion or philosophy, even though it is from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

I’m pleased to be able to announce the winner of my RootsTech 2017 contest. Amy Floto related her experience with “the Haunted Treadmill and the Magic Box.” Look for her story after the first of the year. I received lots of great entries. I’ll share a few of the best ones with you after Amy’s.In other news, RootsTech has announced more keynote presenters. The Property Brothers, Jonathan and Drew Scott, will present. These multi-talented identical twins have built an impressive entertainment empire by following their mutual passion for film, entertainment, and home renovation. Come to RootsTech and listen to the Scott Brothers talk about how it all began. From their first business at age seven, to purchasing and flipping their first fixer-upper for a profit of $50,000 at the age of 17, these two have a lot to share about entrepreneurial spirit, hard work, and the sweetness of success.

At the risk of having unknown family members come out of the woodwork, I wanted to share some news with you. I found out recently that FamilySearch employees can give family members a discount code for a $109 4-day RootsTech pass or $139 for a RootsTech+Innovator Summit pass. Contact your closest related RootsTech employee and get the discount code.

RootsTech 2017 will be held at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, 8-11 February 2017.

Family Discovery Day

Registration for Family Discovery Day 2017 is now open. It will be held 11 February 2017 at the Salt Palace Convention Center. The event is for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I apologize for not getting this news out sooner, as the event “sells” out fast. I say “sells” because it is free. To register, click here and then click Register. To sweeten the pot, RootsTech has announced that the keynote speakers for Family Discovery Day will be President Russell M Nelson and his wife, Wendy. Wendy is an avid genealogist and did a great job speaking last year. President Nelson is the president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles so it is quite an honor to have him at RootsTech.

According to FamilySearch:

Family Discover Day is the perfect place for individuals and families to discover helpful family history solutions, watch demonstrations, get one-on-one help, interact with innovative family history technologies, and mingle with hundreds of exhibitors from around the globe.

Select sessions are also available for those with Church callings and responsibilities related to family history and the temple. Individuals will be able to get their questions answered, discover new tools, and learn best practices.

Over 15,000 adults and children attended the free event in 2016. Tickets will be limited again in 2017 for this increasingly popular event. Interested individuals and families should register as quickly as possible online at RootsTech.org.

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

If you’ve been waiting for another AncestryDNA mega-sale, wait no longer. Ancestry is selling its DNA kit for $69 from 25 November to 28 November 2016. From 29 November to 14 December 2016 they are offering it for $89. The $69 price is the lowest I see every year.

If you’re buying for a relative, don’t do what I did. I had the kit shipped direct to an elderly relative. I asked them to send me the code and let me activate it. He says he received the test, provided the sample and sent it in. He couldn’t find a code. Then he claimed he had activated it. However, he’s never shown up as a DNA match to any of his siblings. I’ve learned from others that they have the kits shipped to themselves, they activate it, and then they pay to have it shipped a second time, this to the relative. (Perhaps Ancestry can work out a way to email the code to the purchaser and allow shipping the kit direct to the relative.)

To obtain the sell price visit www.Ancestry.com/DNAgift. (The URL isn’t working as I write this. Presumably, it will start working on the 25th.)

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Last week I quoted an anonymous commenter who had left RootsWeb mailing lists in favor of Facebook and Google+. I admitted not doing much with social media. Just in case social media is your thing, let me point you in the direction of Ancestry.com’s and FamilySearch’s social media channels.

Ancestry has a presence on several social media channels. Follow them at

By contrast, I’m only on Facebook and Twitter. Like or follow me if that is how you wish to be informed of new blog posts. (Sorry about the double posts on Facebook last week. I was running an experiment. It should be fixed now.) And if you follow me via social media, there is a bonus! Once—sometimes twice!—a year I’ll post a comment on Facebook or Twitter that blog readers won’t receive!

I should warn you that to contact me it is still best to send me an email (ancestryinsider@gmail.com) or leave a comment on a blog post. I don’t check Facebook or Twitter messages, at least not very often. Sadly, even if you send me email, I’ll probably ignore it. Just kidding. I read every email and value your ideas, but I have time to respond to only a few. Thank you for your interest and support. I hope my humble efforts benefit a least a couple of you.

Monday, November 21, 2016

My comments about the Layton FamilySearch Center and microfilm elicited some good feedback.

Dear Ancestry Insider,

I work at the Ogden FamilySearch Center and we have some books and readers and film and fiche. Come on up!

Janice Nusbaum

Dear Janice,

That is good news. There is so much that is only available on film. I’m glad to hear it.

Signed,---The Ancestry Insider

Dear Ancestry Insider,

I am a FHC Director and was told not too long ago that there will be no film use within 3 or 4 years. I was told this because I was inquiring about returning films that were viewable online.

Signed,Unknown

Dear Ancestry Insider,

They've (FamilySearch?) said they will never put all the films online?? Is that because of contract restrictions or some other reason?

Signed,Marilyn Cranford

Dear Marilyn,

There are several reasons why some images will never be available online: contracts, laws, relationships, and strategies.

In the distant past many companies did business over a handshake. If FamilySearch/GSU operated that way, it is conceivable they have films for which they have no written contract. In the past when written contracts became the norm, companies didn’t foresee technology growth; FamilySearch has said publicly that most of its contracts did not foresee distribution via any medium besides microfilm. If FamilySearch wishes to publish these films, they will have to negotiate contracts with many record custodians and many of them won’t do so.

Laws increasingly limit what can be published. Open publication (which the Internet does) is a very different animal than closed distribution (which is what you do when you order a film to view at a FamilySearch family history center). So while some films can remain in limited distribution, they can’t be published publicly on the Internet. This trend is likely to get worse.

An article in the FamilySearch Wiki documents another scenario. FamilySearch had published some images of vital records. The contract with the record custodian was revised such that FamilySearch depublished the images in exchange for rights to obtain and publish additional indexes. Apparently, FamilySearch is willing to forego publishing microfilm that it has rights to publish if doing so can buy a continued working relationship with a record custodian.

Strategy comes into play. Some films are duplicates. Some films were not filmed by FamilySearch/Genealogical Society of Utah. I predict that FamilySearch will not digitize some films because decision makers will decide they would rather spend the money elsewhere. For example, how valuable are Soundex census indexes? Are the costs justified for the few discoveries that will result? Or would you rather have high-value vital records from your ancestral country? How valuable are the road commissioners’ ledger books? They’ll never be digitally indexed by humans. Looking at the public numbers, FamilySearch has slowed publication of unindexed images. Does that mean that low-value, hard to index films might never be published?

Signed,---The Ancestry Insider

Dear Ancestry Insider,

Would you be willing to give our Family History Center a plug? We have a VERY LARGE collection of microfilms for the Chicago and Cook County Vital Records. Instead of writing to Cook County, spending $15, and waiting 6 weeks, or not getting what you want at all for your $15, you can spend 5 minutes and get that birth, marriage, or death certificate for FREE.

Thursday, November 17, 2016

RootsWeb continues to draw lots of comments from readers. It has a passionate following. Reader Cheryl received this email from Ancestry.com support last week:

Dear Cheryl,

Thank you for contacting RootsWeb in regard to accessing your account and your trees. We apologize for the frustration you have had trying to access your WorldConnect Trees. We are updating our technical infrastructure which is causing issues with the WorldConnect Trees. Once the update is completed the Trees should then work as planned. We don't have a time frame as to when this will be completed but we do appreciate your patience during this time. If there is anything else with which we might assist you, please let us know.

Yvonne/RootsWeb Support Team

The week previous I received this anonymous comment:

It would appear that the RootsWeb lists are active again, though at the last check my LAWs-UK is not. But having replaced it with Facebook & Google+, I have no intention to re-activate.

I need to learn how to better work my way through Facebook. As is, it takes far more time than I have. I loved the RootsWeb mailing lists. It was easy to understand what I needed to do to get the emails I wanted and not any others. I didn’t have to poll for items of interest. I wasn’t sucked into spending more time than originally intended. I had dozens of items to review, not hundreds. If you’re a Facebook fan and haven’t yet liked my page, please do. https://www.facebook.com/AncestryInsider. You’ll receive notification of each new post. If you’re still an email fan and don’t yet receive our emails, subscribe by email. But I digress…

The anonymous comment came hard on the hills of this one by Joseph Pyle: “Problem continues. Just tried to post a mail message to a list I administer. The message was rejected by the server.”

It is admirable that Ancestry.com is spending money on RootsWeb. I hope they continue to do so.

and more for a total of 24 RootsTech labs and classes. And that’s just the first Thursday session!

Just a few of the speakers for the other three sessions on Thursday are

Amy Johnson Crow

Angie Bush

Bruce Durie

C. Ann Staley

Crista Cowan

Daniel Horowitz

Diahan Southard

Dirk Weissleder

Drew Smith

Janet Hovorka

Josh Taylor

Juliana Szucs

Kenyatta Berry

Laurie Werner Castillo

Lisa Alzo

Mary Tedesco

Peg Ivanyo

Peggy Lauritzen

Peter Drinkwater

Schelly Talalay Dardashti

Tom Jones

and many more.

Come check out who is teaching Friday and Saturday. See the entire class schedule on the RootsTech website. Notice the ability at the top to filter classes to just Getting Started, regular RootsTech sessions, add-on labs, and Innovator Summit sessions.

In other RootsTech news, RootsTech has announced a unique look to the conference this year: a cake decorating contest. Ancestral recipes have always been a mainstay of the wider family history experience. With “The Cake Boss” coming to the conference, RootsTech is taking the opportunity to appeal to potential family historians who have decorating skills.

To make things even sweeter, we have four different categories that you can enter:

Wedding

Birthday

Holiday

Graduation

Entries will be sifted into three finalists, and one Grand Prize Winner will be announced per category. Each dazzling creation will be on display on Saturday during RootsTech and Family Discovery Day, where over 10,000 attendees will view and have a chance to vote for a “People’s Choice” winner selected for each category at the end of the day.

You must fill out an application to enter the competition. The deadline is either December 1 or December 15, depending on which part of the rules you believe. Read the rules and submit an application at RootsTech.org/cake.

OPENING EVENING EVENT

On their blog, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has released more details about their RootsTech opening evening concert. “Music–It Runs in the Family” will be held Thursday, 9 February 2017, at 8:00 p.m. in the 21,000 seat Conference Center just North of Temple Square. The concert will feature music from Rodgers and Hammerstein and stories about the Hammerstein family narrated by Oscar (“Andy”) Hammerstein III, grandson of Oscar Hammerstein II. Special guest artist Dallyn Vail Bayles will also perform. Featured music will come from State Fair, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, Oklahoma, and The Sound of Music.

RootsTech attendees receive a ticket with their registration, but free tickets are available to the general public.

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

I want to remind you of my contest to give away a RootsTech plus Innovator Summit 4-day pass ($299 value) to one lucky reader. RootsTech 2017 will be held at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, 8-11 February 2017.

To enter, send me an example of a darned record or a tale of serendipity. What is a darned record? Darned records are funny, weird, unique, cool, or awesome. What are tales of serendipity? Tales of serendipity embody uncanny coincidences, Olympian luck, or remarkable miracles.

The RootsTech Welcome Party is an 80s themed event. Play 80s video games, listen to 80s music, enjoy appetizers and drinks, hear an Innovator Showdown announcement, and expand your network.

Liz Wiseman, the Innovator Summit keynote, is a best-selling author, speaker, and executive advisor that teaches leadership to executives and emerging leaders around the world. Some of her recent clients include: Apple, Disney, eBay and PayPal, Facebook, Gap, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Roche, Salesforce.com, and Twitter. Her best-selling books are Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work, Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, and The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools.

Is there a discount for family history consultants this year? What is the code?

Signed,(various people)

Dear (various people),

Yes, there is a discount again this year. Consultants can get a RootsTech pass for $109 or a RootsTech plus Innovator Summit pass for $139. Compared to the regular price of $269, that’s a savings of $150! To register for RootsTech 2017, visit RootsTech.org. You will need a special code to get the discount. If the Church knows you are a family history consultant, you receive the Family History Consultant Newsletter email. The September 2016 newsletter (which for some reason I didn’t receive until 24 October 2016) contains a link to an article with the code.

If you don’t receive the newsletter, ask your clerk to enter your calling as a consultant in the Manage Callings section of Leader and Clerk Resources so you will receive it in the future. If you missed the September newsletter, please don’t ask me for the code. Ask another consultant who knows that you are a consultant.

[Family Discovery Day] sounds wonderful, but I will be unable to attend that day. In the past, LDS family history consultants could get a ticket for free access to the vendor hall for other days. Do you know if that will be true of this conference?

On FamilySearch I counted over 85 couples listed as some form of his parents’ names (Henry II Plantagenet King of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine Queen of England). There are at least 3 forms of Richard’s name, and one of them has his wife (Princess Berengaria de Nararre) written as Mrs. Richard 1. When you click on her name, her occupation is listed as “concubine”; no sources listed. HA!

All of this has me just speechless.

Let me say it for you. Medieval and royal lines are known to be among the worst in Family Tree. I counted 475 copies of Richard. I would expect a similar number for his parents. There are probably a quarter million persons in this category. If there are 475 copies of each, there are 119 million persons in Family Tree that need to be cleaned up. FamilySearch can’t expect users to do that much. Now that “Individuals of Unusual Size” no longer preclude merges, FamilySearch can write a program to merge high confidence European matches among pre-1500 persons. If they could get the number down to a million, users could take it from there.

Back in the old days, FamilySearch knew there would be havoc if they allowed just anyone to submit these family lines into Ancestral File. They ignored any submissions of persons previous to 1500. They had a medieval research unit at the Family History Library that took the few accepted sources, carefully curated the lines, and added them to Ancestral File. With Family Tree, the philosophy is that anyone can add anything to the tree. And they have.

Fortunately, FamilySearch has published the medieval unit’s research in the FamilySearch Genealogies > Community Trees collection.

If you need to find information about European, medieval genealogies, I would go to these two sources.

While I’m talking about them, FamilySearch used to have a list of the community trees and a link for searching each. I wish they still provided that. Unless you know the identity of a person in one of the trees, it is impossible to find the tree. Here are a few I’ve stumbled across:

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Ancestry’s Fold3 website is offering free access through 15 November 2016 to its Native American Collection. Fold3 has published over 1.5 million images of

Ratified Indian treaties for 1722-1869,

Indian Census Rolls for 1885-1940,

Dawes packets,

Dawes enrollment cards for 1898-1914,

Eastern Cherokee Applications 1906–1909,

Guion Miller Roll 1908–1910,

Cherokee Indian Agency TN 1801–1835, and

Native American Photos 1898.

(My own tribe is not represented. If I understand our history correctly, we were hit hard by small pox brought by English fishermen before permanent settlers came to Plymouth. After King Phillip’s War we were settled in a “praying Indian” village amongst the Nipmuc. But I digress…)

Monday, November 7, 2016

I received several replies to my inquiry about the size of the Layton FamilySearch Center’s microfilm collection. Here are some:

Dear Ancestry Insider,

On the new center's "Resources" page they say “This is a computer-only center and does not order microfilm,” and “There are no printed materials or books available in this facility.”

Geolover

Dear Ancestry Insider,

I toured the new center today. They have NO physical books. They say that is why it is not called a Library. All digital.

Thank your for sharing so much with us.

Janice Nusbaum

Dear Readers,

Wow. I don’t know how much to read into this. Patrons at the Layton center, 23 miles north of the Salt Lake Family History Library, will have to drive down to see film while patrons at the Riverton center, 23 miles south of the library, have their own film collection. I guess it makes sense that as more and more of the Family History Library’s book and microfilm collections go online, the less need there is for physical books and films. FamilySearch recently said publicly that they have 299,822 books in their digital collection. I don’t know that they’ve ever said how many films they have digitized. Certainly it is more than the 23,000 rolls at the Riverton center. Someone should ask them. But since they’ve said they will never put all the films online, you’d think they would still have a film reader or two. Wow.

Friday, November 4, 2016

FamilySearch has announced the class schedule for the Family History Library for November. Click here for the schedule. Most webinars are recorded and posted on the Family History Library Classes and Webinars Wiki page a few days after presentation, so you can access past webinars and handouts.

FamilySearch has released its monthly wrap up of new features and changes on FamilySearch.org. They include:

A simplified help center experience. I mostly like it. They’ve obviously copied the Google search experience, placing the text entry box in the middle of a mostly blank page. However, I don’t like the elimination of a separate Learning Center search experience. It appears there is no way to filter by language, format, or ability level. Unlike Google, there seems to be no search tools or advanced search page. Hopefully they’ll find a way to work those features back into the mix.

On 26 October 2016 FamilySearch published a bunch of new obituaries in the U.S. GenealogyBank obituary collection. Along with the new publication is the ability to see and navigate to others listed on the page. In the collection, 23 of the 31 million records were indexed by computer. If you view one of those records, a message will indicate it was indexed by a computer and you will be given the opportunity to request a correction. (That correction request feature is available only for this collection. If you want to make corrections to any other records, you are DOA.)

I’ve received new reports that portions of RootsWeb—mailing lists in particular—are broken. An anonymous reader commented on 23 October 2016:

I am unable to post messages to either of the mail lists I administer. Nor can I subscribe to Listowners-L. I took a look at various list archives, it appears the mailing lists have not not been working since Oct 7 2016.

Andy Micklethwaite sent me this message on 21 October 2016:

I received this as a reply to a post on a Facebook group:

“Morning, as you are probably aware they upgraded the servers recently. At the same time they upgraded Mailman, the lists software, to the latest version which was long overdue. It’s the latter that has caused the problem, I believe. The lists have been down since the 7th October. Hopefully they will be back in due course but no date is known.”

Ancestry employees recently spent a week building a home for Habitat for Humanity. Employees from their Lehi, Orem, and Salt Lake City offices helped build a new home for a local American Fork family. “We want our employees to get personally involved in the community,” said Ancestry’s Camille Penrod. “[We] offer our employees time to volunteer on the clock so they’re able to participate in meaningful charities.” For more information, see “Ancestry Employees Give Back” on the Ancestry Tech Blog.

FamilySearch is gradually rolling out a new homepage design. I’ve written about it before. Regular users have probably all started seeing it. The left side contains inspiring videos, tree-specific resources, and recently added photos, recordings, stories, and documents about your ancestors and their families (and advertisements, I might add). The right side contains a list of recently seen ancestors, recommended tasks, and a to-do list. For more information, see “New FamilySearch Design: Log In to Try It Out” on the FamilySearch Blog.

“Ancestry recently announced the creation of a Tech and Product User Group in Utah with the goal of encouraging collaboration between companies across the Wasatch Front to solve difficult and interesting technology and science problems.” For more information, see “Ancestry Hosts First Tech/Product Meetup in New Lehi HQ” on the Ancestry Tech Blog.

Thursday, November 3, 2016

FamilySearch has announced the opening of a new FamilySearch center in Layton, Utah. The goal of the center is to provide a fun, family oriented experience to learn about who you are and where you came from, with interactive displays, a children's area, two recording rooms, and 140 computers, 60 of which have touch-screen monitors.

They are having an open house today through Saturday. The hours of the open house are

Today (Nov. 3), 1-9 p.m.

Friday (Nov. 4) and Saturday (Nov. 5) from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The center is located at 915 W Gordon Ave., Layton, UT 84041-4811. Please enter the parking lot on the north side of the building and continue to parking areas on the south side. Overflow parking is available on the north side of the Deseret Industries building.

According to information provided by FamilySearch, the center includes experiences debuted in the FamilySearch Discovery Center in Salt Lake:

Your visit will be as unique as you are. Learn about the meaning of your name, what happened the year you were born, and other fun facts. See where your family came from, view photos of family members, and read their stories—all on 55-inch touch-screen monitors. Data used for the interactive experiences is drawn from FamilySearch.org [Family Tree] and selected partners.

This state-of-the-art FamilySearch Center with 13,979 square feet has casual seating and collaboration areas, making it easy for families and youth groups to work together on laptops, iPads, or other mobile devices. The center and its resources are open to the public at no charge (a small fee is required for printing and making photocopies). If the usual family history center model is used, the library is staffed with volunteers with differing areas of research expertise. I recommend inquiring to find the best experts in your area of interest. I assume the center replaces multiple, smaller centers in the area. I wonder how large their microfilm collection is. Riverton has 23,000 rolls. Anybody out there know?

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The Ancestry Insider

The Ancestry Insider is consistently a top ten and readers’ choice award winner. He has been an insider at both the two big genealogy organizations, FamilySearch and Ancestry.com. He was Time Magazine Man of the Year in both 1966 and 2006. And he really is descended from an Indian princess.

Biography

The Ancestry Insider was a readers’ choice for the top four genealogy news and resources blogs, part of Family Tree Magazine’s “40 Best Genealogy Blogs” for 2010. He reports on the two big genealogy organizations, Ancestry.com and FamilySearch. He was named a “Most Popular Genealogy Blogs” by ProGenealogists, and has received Family Tree Magazine’s “101 Best Web Sites” award every year since 2008. A genealogical technologist, the Insider has a post-graduate technology degree and holds a dozen technology patents in the United States and abroad. He has done genealogy since 1972 and has worked in the computer industry since 1978. He was Time Magazine Man of the Year in both 1966 and 2006. And he really is descended from an Indian princess.

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The Ancestry Insider is written independently of Ancestry.com and FamilySearch. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.

E-mails and posted messages may be republished and may be edited for content, length, and editorial style.

The Ancestry Insider may be biased by the following factors: 1) The Ancestry Insider accepts products and services free of charge for review purposes. 2) The author of the Ancestry Insider is employed by the Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, owner and sponsor of FamilySearch. 3) The author is a believing, practicing member of the same Church. 4) The author is a former stock-holder and employee of the business now known as Ancestry.com and maintains many friendships established while employed there. 5) It is the editorial policy of this column to be generally supportive of Ancestry.com and FamilySearch. 6) The author is an active volunteer for the National Genealogical Society.

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